


The Devil's Advocate

by on_the_run_from_the_MI5



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Prison, not really MorMor yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3098444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_run_from_the_MI5/pseuds/on_the_run_from_the_MI5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Moran sits in death row in a prison in Texas, waiting for his execution. Which is when he receives a... very unusual visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil's Advocate

**Author's Note:**

> So... I wrote that because... why not?! I don't know anything about American jurisdiction, but I hope I got it at least a bit right.  
> For Mim, of course.

Yelling.

There’s fucking yelling every fucking night. Sebastian can deal with just about everything in here. The mere seven square-meters he lives on, the shoddy grey interior, the bars in front of the windows, the fence with barbed wire, hell, even the nasty showers and the disgusting food. But the fucking yelling from the cells just down the hall drives him up the walls. What are those idiots yelling at? And how does it help?

This is death row. And nobody fucks with death row.

Sebastian’s been transferred here two weeks ago, when his sentence has been ironclad. He knew it would have been. Murdering a person in the state of Texas? May have the side-effect of capital punishment. Cold-bloodedly and unrepentantly killing a person in the state of Texas? Commonly comes with capital punishment. Cold-bloodedly and unrepentantly killing four people in the state of Texas? Prepare yourself for the fucking needle, asshole.

Sebastian hasn’t even bothered to lodge an appeal. His lawyer has blabbered something about collateral state review and federal whatever… Seb has shrugged. He hasn’t bothered with it.

It’s just been a matter of time. Until the death sentence of Sebastian Moran, born on 20th April 1976 in Boston, Massachusetts, has been confirmed. Method: lethal injection. Date of execution: 15th March 2006. You’re welcome, good bye, have a nice day.

2006\. Two-thousand-and-fucking-six. Which means three more years in damned death row.

And he would be glad to get some fucking sleep in this time!!!

“Will you fucking bastard shut up now?!” he screams back at whoever makes the frickin’ noise tonight.

The following silence lasts about thirty seconds.

Sebastian can’t wait for his execution to come.

***

It is the 12th of December 2003 when Sebastian is called to meet his lawyer. He hasn’t asked for the appointment, but that’s probably one of those law-bureaucracy-things, so he holds his arms out for the shackles. Ten minutes later, he’s sat down in the tiny visiting room, and a guard positions himself behind his chair. Sebastian doesn’t really care about all that jurisdiction bullshit. He’s just tired because of that fucking yelling and wants to sleep.

Soon, the door is opened, and his lawyer enters, accompanied by a guard and one of those higher-ranked prison bastards in suit and tie.

Sebastian has had this a few times before, so he doesn’t hurry looking at the attorney. His blue gaze lazily slides over the gray linoleum floor to finally see black dress shoes, fine leather – in short, lawyer shoes. He lets his stare wander upwards, over gray slacks, wonderfully fitted for lean legs, to the black belt that matches perfectly with the shoes. Same leather as the neat, expensive-looking briefcase by the man’s side.

Wait… expensive-looking briefcase? Perfect belt with perfect fine shoes? Wonderfully fitted slacks? And lean legs?

That is _not_ Sebastian’s lawyer.

His eyes shoot up to meet a face he’s never seen before. The man isn’t tall, and his face is rather one of the average kind (not that he isn’t handsome, Sebastian notices). His hair is dark and slicked back. His eyes are dark as well. Dark and a little bit crazy. As is his smile. And that air he has about him.

“Hello, Sebastian”, he says warmly, as if they’d been in this together for months.

Sebastian hesitates shortly before he replies. “Hi.”

The guy looks around the room for a moment, then lifts his eyebrows at the guards. “If you don’t mind?” He’s got a hint of an accent, and Sebastian is almost sure that he knows it.  
The prison official shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Not with serious offenders in death row.”

The guy recoils ever so slightly, then smilingly shakes his head, puts his briefcase on the table and takes out a file. He extracts a sheet of paper and leads the official over into the corner with a hand on his arm. He hands him the paper and talks to him quietly, apparently reasoning, though Sebastian doesn’t understand a word. He just sees the official’s brows rise high on his forehead, then he looks at the stranger in confusion and with a hint of desperation… before he beckons the guards to the door and leaves with them, shooting a last look at the man in the gray suit.

The guy sighs in relief, like an annoyed dad who’s just gotten his kids to go to bed, and comes over, sitting down opposite Sebastian. He puts his briefcase on the floor and smiles.  
“Alright…” Sebastian finally begins. “Very good joke. Who are you?”

“Your lawyer. Mr. Jack McCaffrey.”

“Bullshit. Jefferson is my court-appointed defense counsel. Marcus Jefferson.”

The guy laughs, and it actually sounds rather nice… except for this hint of “Hello, my name is PSYCHO”. “Oh, yes, Mr. Jefferson. Let’s just say he’s been…withdrawn from your case.”

Okay, Sebastian has a veeeeeery bad feeling about this. “Why?”

The laugh falls from the strangers face as if it’s been wiped away. “Because he was an idiot. Soooo… Sebastian.” He braces his elbows on the tabletop and leans onto his fisted hands. “It’s okay if I call you Sebastian, isn’t it?”

For a lack of a better answer, Sebastian shrugs and nods.

“Good”, his new lawyer – ha-ha, of course – says in a voice that is a bit higher and excited, and he gives Sebastian a smile that almost makes him believe that the guy is flirting with him.

Not that Sebastian has a problem with that. No, actually not. It’s just that you’re not exactly into flirting when you’re waiting for your execution and you suddenly meet a total stranger who claims to be your lawyer and whose eyes positively scream “serial killer”.

At least to Sebastian, they do. He knows the kind. _His_ kind.

“Well, Sebastian… I reckon you have been found guilty of murdering… Louis Ramirez, a car and drug dealer, in Houston… George Hersey, a pimp and human trafficker, in Mesquite… Julia McFarlane, a businesswoman, in Dallas… and Tony Jenkins, a bouncer, again in Houston.”

It’s the weirdest thing Sebastian has ever heard and seen. The guy… he talks as if he’s looking up the facts in a file, making all those pauses, but…his eyes are on Sebastian all the time, only slightly narrowing every now and again. It is as if he’s…looking up in his memory. Or – even more unsettling – in Sebastian himself.

“Can you tell me why, Sebastian?” Mr. McCaffrey asks, an unhealthy curiosity in his eyes.

Sebastian sighs, because he’s answered this questions like a thousand times, but nonetheless does it once again. “I killed Louis Ramirez because I was paid a grand for it. I killed George Hersey because I was paid another grand for it, and because he was an asshole. I killed Julia McFarlane because I was paid two grand for it.”

As he doesn’t continue, Mr. McCaffrey arches his eyebrows. “I sense a pattern there. What about Tony Jenkins? Why did you kill him?”

“Because he pissed me off”, Sebastian says coldly. It’s nothing he hasn’t told the police or the judge or the jury.

The “lawyer” smiles, turns his head a little in a curious fashion, and quietly clicks his tongue. It makes Sebastian’s skin tickle. In both the good and the bad way.

“Okay, come on, seriously”, Sebastian says, unnerved with himself and that stupid little game. “Who are you?”

“An interested party.”

“Interested in my case?”

“Interested in _you_ , Sebastian”, the man tells him with a smile.

The murderer laughs harshly. “Alright, I’m flattered. But I’m not exactly in need of boyfriend.”

“Yeah…” McCaffrey looks him over briefly. “Bet you have enough of them in prison.” That is said with a smirk that indicates that the guy is not exactly disgusted by the thought.

That kind of comment, as well as the look, catch Sebastian off-guard, and he’s getting slightly angry now. “What do you want?”

“Revise your case.”

Sebastian lifts an eyebrow. “We’re not talking legal appeal now, are we? Because I’ve got a very secure date with a syringe full of poison in about three years.”

McCaffrey smiles. “Then it’s good that I’m here today, and not in three years. And we’re not talking legal appeal, no.”

The prisoner is silent for a moment. “You know that there’s a camera with a microphone up there?” he asks then.

“Yes, I do”, the lawyer says in that soft voice. “And I also know what they see now in the surveillance room.”

Ah, he’s hacked them. Clever bastard. Sebastian has to smile.

“Well, Sebastian… I have to be honest: I’m not your new court-appointed defense counsel.”

Sebastian gapes in fake shock. “Really? You kidding me?”

McCaffrey doesn’t bother with the comment. “Well, I did indeed study law. In Yale, by the way. But I’m not here as your lawyer. I’m here as your ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

Sebastian stays quiet. Lifts an eyebrow. “You want to free me?” he asks then, suspiciously.

McCaffrey looks unnerved. “Yes, of course. That’s what I implied, isn’t it?”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

The pseudo-lawyer shrugs. “Regard it a favor by a compatriot.”

Annoyed by the constant teasing and playing and implying, Sebastian plants his forearms and shackled hands on the table and leans forward – something he couldn’t have done with the guards present. “Mr.…McCaffrey. I have about three hundred million compatriots, and I’ve killed quite a few of them. That’s why my remaining compatriots want to see me in here and finally getting a load of poison injected into my system. The officer who arrested me was a compatriot. The judge who sentenced me was a compatriot. And I’ll bet my ass that the henchman who’s going to give me that lethal injection will be a compatriot, too.”

“Oh, well, but I’m not actually saying that it’s about your current nationality. You and me, we were not born in the same country. But our grandfathers were. In the same city, even.”  
Sebastian frowns at the man, thinking back of his youth. He’d been brought up in South Boston, in a family of… Irish immigrants. His granddad had come from Dublin after WWI.

“You’re Irish”, Sebastian mutters, finally able to place that accent.

“Very good, Sebastian.” Psycho’s eyes are glinting. “Slow, but very good. I’ll blame that on your lack of practice lately.”

“But that’s not the reason, is it? It doesn’t matter to you that I am the offspring of a few red-headed, pale, freckled Irishmen.” Sebastian curls his hands into fists and leans in even closer. “Stop wasting my time and tell me.”

McCaffrey leans back casually, glancing to the side as if he’s annoyed, then looking back at Sebastian. “If you are being so disrespecting once again, Sebastian, I will spare you lethal injection and instead do things to you that make America’s historical execution techniques look positively humane.” This is said with the relaxation of a killer who meant what he said and had done it before.

Sebastian gulps, and McCaffrey laughs, suddenly highly amused. “Look at you, being so scared”, he chuckles, then gets serious again. “Sebastian, let’s talk openly: you are a convicted murderer, and I am a businessman. A businessman who needs people like you.”

“Murderers?”

“Yes. Specifically: assassins.”

Sebastian tilts his head to the side a bit, not willing to run into things and throw himself at the feet of a total stranger who could be doing just about anything. “What kind of businessman needs assassins?”

“A businessman like me?” McCaffrey suggests in an innocent voice, mimicking Sebastian’s gesture of tilting his head.

“Then why me?” Sebastian asks, because he still doesn’t want to give in. The guy doesn’t need to know that he’s already captured him like a fish on a hook.

“You assassinated three people in just six months, and you only got caught because one of your employers spilled everything about you. And I bet those three people weren’t the only ones you killed for money. And let’s not get started on those you killed for fun. Just because they pissed you off.” McCaffrey’s voice adopts a fascinated and challenging tone. “You come from a violent background, Sebastian. You’re constantly awaiting an attack, always ready to defend yourself, maybe because your father hit you when you were a boy.” Sebastian’s face goes blank, and McCaffrey keeps going. “And some time, passive-aggressive just wasn’t enough for you. You joined the army, but you were discharged, because you like violence so much, maybe a bit too much. You could never keep your feet still, because civilian life just didn’t agree with you. Those scars on your hands? Five Finger Fillet, and I know that little boys don’t play with knives. The one at your eyebrow? Obviously made by brass knuckles, probably when you joined that illegal fight club. But still, you didn’t have enough, so you went back to killing. From what I know from my researches, you’ve killed about twenty people in the last three years, and you never ever got caught, because you’re good. And you don’t do it for the money. Money’s just a benefit to you, obvious in how you just threw it down the drain for nothing. You do it because you like it. And you like to tell yourself you resigned, but don’t you realize that you actually have to slump your shoulders deliberately? In fact, you’re still ready for the jump, you are still hungry.” After his little speech, McCaffrey leans back again. “That’s why I want you.”

They both sit in silence for a while, a tense silence, because McCaffrey waits for Sebastian to say something and Sebastian doesn’t know what to say.

“What if I say no?” he finally murmurs.

The man pouts. He actually pouts. “Then you’d make me very sad.” He shrugs. “But, well, it’d be your decision. And I actually don’t have to worry. Good thing that you’re a convicted murderer. Nobody will believe you if you tell them about this. You’re just a nasty criminal, making up stories. And I don’t even have to kill you, because jurisdiction will do that for me, anyway. Isn’t America a beautiful country?”

“I’m not so fond of it quite now.” Sebastian’s gaze roams around the shabby little room and his shackles, and the one-of-a-kind businessman laughs.

There is another silence, which McCaffrey finally breaks by softly asking, “Are you saying yes, Sebastian?”

Sebastian shrugs, trying to cling onto the pride he’s got left. The promise of being able to kill again is tempting, and actually enough to make Sebastian agree, but he won’t let the guy win easily. “You better offer me a good deal, or you walk out of this place without the assassin you so much want.” 

McCaffrey smiles, as if he’s liking the challenge Sebastian poses. “Five grand per kill, with prospect on wage increase if you prove yourself. A set of new weapons, high quality, of course. A wardrobe of new clothes, because I won’t let you walk around like a thug. And, as long as the targets are dead by the end of the day, you can do whatever you like to them.” His voice has dropped to a seductive whisper. “What do you say now, Sebastian?”

Sebastian Moran doesn’t hesitate for a split-second. “Give me any name and they’ll lie dead at your feet.”

McCaffrey narrows his eyes with a smirk. “I’m liking you. Maybe I’ll let you sleep at the end of my bed.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Only if you stop being so cheeky.”

Then it actually happens: they smile at each other, both amused and slightly flirty. Sebastian will like this employment.

It is when McCaffrey gathers his things together that Sebastian realizes he has no idea how his prison break is going to actually happen.

“Hey, McCaffrey. How do you want to do this?”

“Excuse me?”

Sebastian holds up his shackled hands. “Not like I can walk out of here. So how do you want to do it? Stand under my window in the middle of the night and helping me climb out on a rope made of bed sheets?”

McCaffrey chuckles. “No, no. I’ll see to it that you’ll walk out of here in a non-clichéd way.”

“You know that it’s too late for a legal attempt, true?”

“It’s never too late, Sebastian.” McCaffrey closes his briefcase and stands up. “Let’s just say I know someone.”

“Who…?”

“Knows someone”, the businessman says with a nonchalant smile.

Sebastian leans back. “You like being a mystery, don’t you?”

“Well, of course. If I were plain and boring, it wouldn’t be half so much fun.” He winks at Sebastian and then takes a business card out of his pocket, sliding it across the table so that Sebastian can take it into his hand.

“I’ll have a word with them so they let you keep it”, McCaffrey says, checking his watch. “I’ll be in touch anyway, but feel free to call me anytime. They will let you.”

That, Sebastian believed. He looked down at the card in his hand. No pictures or calligraphic nonsensical. Just a plain, expensive print. It read “Jack McCaffrey”, and a telephone number. Only the initials and the number were printed in red, like it was about them only. “JM”.

“What’s your name, actually?” Sebastian can’t hold back the question.

The businessman in the impeccable suit smiles as he walks towards the door. “I go by many.”

“So what shall I call you then?”

“You can call me ‘sir’. ‘Boss’, if you behave. Or simply ‘God’.” He’s almost gone, but stops in the doorframe once again, smiling back at Sebastian. “Or, actually, ‘Satan’ is more like it.” And with a wink, he’s gone.


End file.
